In My Daughter's Eyes
by Miss M Cricket
Summary: He looks up at her, all the love in him focused at this one point of joy he calls his daughter... Kirk/McCoy, Joanna McCoy/Pavel Chekov


Title: In My Daughter's Eyes  
Author: miss_m_cricket on Livejournal  
Fandom: Star Trek Reboot  
Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, Joanna McCoy/Pavel Chekov  
Rating: Pg-13  
Disclaimer: You think I own any of this? Nuts, you are.

A/N: Lyrics are from the song "In My Daughters Eyes" by Martina McBride

Summary:_He looks up at her, all the love in him focused at this one point of joy he calls his daughter..._

**__****In My Daughter's Eyes **

**_In my daughter's eyes I am a hero_**

A man in his early twenties holds his little daughter in his arms, his hazel green eyes soft and tender with love. She laughs and turns to look up at him, her identical round eyes, dancing with joy in her simple and love filled life.

She touches the book that he is reading to her.

"Daddy? Why do all the princesses have fair hair?" she asks.

He kisses her dark head, so like his own.

"Haven't you noticed, all of these princesses have to be saved by princes?"

Joanna snorts, a little unladylike, her mother would have a fit if she heard her.

"Silly princesses!"

"Whereas this one," he continues, holding up a new book for her, "is about a princess who doesn't have to be rescued."

Joanna opens the book and gasps in delight.

"She has dark hair, like me!" she raises glowing eyes to meet his and he feels his heart warm in his chest.

**_I am strong and wise and I know no fear_**

It is a hot summers day and he doesn't need to be at the Hospital this weekend. So he is out the back, past the gate and the logs down to the field where the horses are. He could spend hours down here with them, hours just enjoying the quiet and the peace of their existance.

Horses are simple, he wishes everything were like that.

Looking up at the house he sees a small dark haired figure come out of the house, shading her eyes and looking towards him.

He beckons and his little girl, now six years old, slides under the back fence and races across the field to him.

He scoops her up and raises her high, setting her on his shoulder.

She grips his hair and laughs happily.

He looks up at her, all the love in him focused at this one point of joy he calls his daughter.

"Love you Princess." He says softly up to her.

"I love you too Daddy." She says smiling back down at him.

**_But the truth is plain to see  
She was sent to rescue me_**

**  
**It has been a hard day in the Hospital and Leonard feels so bone weary that he could collapse and sleep for a week.

But the first thing he does after he gets home is open her bedroom door and peek in at the little figure of his daughter, cuddled up in her bed.

The sight of her rejuvenates him. Sometimes when everything goes wrong, she is the only thing that keeps him going.

He walks in and gently kisses her forehead, smiling at the book she has clutched in her hands.

Gently he eases the story of the dark haired princess out of her hands and places it on her bedside table.

Knowing that it is inevitable doesn't help him stop wishing that she could always be like this.

Be his little girl.

**_I see who I wanna be  
In my daughter's eyes_**

He pleads with her.

"Princess please…"

She keeps crying.

"Don't go daddy, please. Please don't go!"

Leo stares down at her feeling tortured.

"I have to go. I'm sorry."

He walks towards the door, picking up his bags as he goes. She watches, her eyes overflowing with tears, unable to believe that her beloved daddy is leaving her.

"I HATE YOU!" she screams and runs to her room, past her startled mother and her stunned father.

And Leo, with his now ex wife ushering him out the door, feels his heart being ripped to shreds, wishing he could be the father she wanted him to be.

Perfect.

**_In my daughter's eyes everyone is equal_****  
**

She rants, all tight focused energy, and Leo smiles at the passion in her.

"–they were hurting him, Daddy, and they made me so ANGRY! So I walked up to Tommy Jefferson and I smacked him one right in the jaw, like Jim taught me!"

She looks at him her eyes beaming with pride.

"And now Tim and I are going to do our history assignments together this weekend."

Leo opens his mouth to tell her this is fine, but violence really isn't the answer no matter what Uncle Jim says, when Jim's voice floats from the kitchen.

"Sounds like a date to me."

Leo opens his mouth to laugh and sees Joanna blush. His mouth drops completely open and his eyes narrow.

"You seeing this boy Joanna?" he asks. She shuffles.

"Well not officially. But I'd like to…"

Leo blusters.

"Absolutely not...completely out of the question…don't even think about it…"

"So what time are you seeing him Jo?" Jim asks, drowning out his irate best friend and lover.

"10…on Saturday. Is that okay Uncle Jim?"

"It most certainly is-"

"That's fine Jo." Her traitorous honourary Uncle says, cutting Leo off again.

And Joanna skips off, happily.

But Leo can't sleep that night.

**_Darkness turns to light and the  
world is at peace  
This miracle God gave to me gives me  
strength when I am weak_**

Leo watches them from the doorway.

Joanna has her head on Pavel's shoulder and he has his arm around her and they are talking softly.

Their hair mingles together, Pavel's lighter, from time in the sun playing with the horses. He is telling her about being captured on an Away team on a faraway planet and she tells him about how immature the boys in her year are.

It warms him to see them like this, his daugher and the young man who has so attached himself to Jim. It isn't so shocking that the intense and young Navigator and the brash and youthful Captain have become close. Two little emotional incompetant peas in a pod they are, Leo thinks with a soft snort.

He leaves his daughter and friend alone and goes into the kitchen. Jim turns and smiles at him, tucking a tea towel into the drawer.

"They alright?" he asks.

He nods and hugs him, feeling content and at peace with the world.

**_I find reason to believe  
In my daughter's eyes_**

Leo looks up, feeling the smile fade as he notices the tears on her cheeks.

"C'mere." He says softly and she crawls into his lap, all sixteen years of her, like she did when she was only 2 and had no concept of 'cool'.

He rubs her back as she tells him about being dumped by her boyfriend after they had been dating a year and three months.

He cuddles her and tells her that he is obviously an idiot and no one wants to date an idiot. She laughs a little wetly and clings to him.

Another pair of arms wrap round them and Leo looks up to see his husband hugging his daughter, bright blue eyes concerned and protective.

He hugs them both they look up at him, love in both their eyes.

"Love you Daddy, Love you Jim." Joanna says, and Jim smiles.

**_And when she wraps her hand  
around my finger  
Oh it puts a smile in my heart_**

She stands at the top of the stairs, a young woman now, her dark hair curled and her large eyes accentuated by smoky makeup.

She is wearing a deep blue dress, like a ball gown that Leo recognises as being very similar to the dress in the book about the dark haired princess.

She comes down and Leo feels his throat constrict. This confident woman couldn't be his little girl, his little Jo.

She hugs her mother, gives Jim a pinch and a kiss and moves to him.

He smiles at her.

"My little princess."

She smiles and takes his hand, giving it a squeeze, before her date is whisking her out the door for her Prom.

**_Everything becomes a little clearer  
I realize what life is all about_**

Leo looks around the new flat that his daughter has bought.

"It's nice." He tells her, not wanting to burden her with the sad feeling he has because she has moved out of home. He hadn't been there for all of her life, but he was there now, there with Jim, and now she wasn't.

"It is." She replies, coming over and wrapping her arms round his waist. "I'll come over every Sunday, Daddy, I'm not leaving you."

_But you are!_ His heart cries, looking down at the dark head over his heart, _You are!_

They return to the other guests of the house warming party and Joanna wanders over to her friends, laughing.

Jim comes to stand by Leo.

"You look sad, Bones." He says, pushing a bourbon into the older mans hand.

Leo drinks.

"It's just hard to believe...seems like only yesterday she was telling her little friends off for stealing her dolls."

Jim gives him a sympathetic smile and they watch as Pavel and Uhura talk to Joanna, before her fiancé whisks her away.

"I don't like him." Leo murmurs. Jim laughs.

"You don't like any man who looks at her Bones."

Leo rolls his eyes but doesn't notice how Pavel Chekov's eyes follow Joanna. But Jim does and it makes him smile..

**_It's hangin' on when your heart  
has had enough  
It's giving more when you feel like giving up _**

She sobs into his chest, soaking his shirt and he holds his princess tight.

"I…thought…he…loved…me!" she hiccups into his chest, sobbing brokenly, "Why…did…he…cheat…on…me? What…did…I…do…wrong…"

"Nothing," he soothes, "You didn't do anything wrong, Princess."

He holds his 28 year old daughter as she cries herself to sleep, shedding a few tears himself for her as she bruises her hurt heart with recriminations at herself.

Eventually she falls asleep in his arms and he strokes her hair.

Jim walks through the door an hour later, Pavel behind him, both men anxious.

Leo puts a finger to his lip and they stay silent, crouching before the sleeping woman.

"What happened?" Jim asks very softly.

"Bastard cheated on her." Leo sighs back, running gentle fingers through the rich mahogany hair of his beloved daughter.

Both men growl softly and Jim stands.

"We'll be back soon."

Pavel moved to follow him but first looked at Leo, sitting on the couch looking back at him.

"I didn't see you." Leo tells the younger man, rolling his eyes. Pavel nods and follows Jim, to pay a visit to the man who had broken their Joanna's heart.

**_I've seen the light  
It's in my daughter's eyes_**

"I'm seeing Pavel." Joanna blurts out at the dinner table.

There is silence for approximately three seconds where Leo has his mouth open, Jim is smiling knowingly, Nyota is beaming, Spock has his eyebrow raised and Joanna is blushing.

Leo opens his mouth to protest, but Jim and Nyota chime in with happy exclamations and his protective protests are totally lost.

He watches his little girl, feeling protective but knowing that Pavel will never hurt her intentionally. He's too good a man for that.

He wonders what Jim really thinks of all this.

**_In my daughter's eyes I can see the future  
A reflection of who I am and what will be_**

"I can't believe they're getting married." Jim says to Leo as the two men lean against the fence.

They watch daughter and friend, Pavel with his arm gently around Joanna's waist.

"I can't either." Leo murmurs, sipping his drink.

The two men lapse into silence, thinking.

**_Though she'll grow and someday leave_**

All fathers dread the day their daughter gets married.

Not because they don't want her to, specifically. It's the concept, her last name is no longer your last name...she isn't yours anymore.

Leo feels no differently when it comes to the day when Joanna McCoy becomes Joanna Chekov.

He chokes out "I do," when the priest asks "who gives this woman..." but inside he rages that she _isn't _a woman, she's just his little girl. He wants to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go.

But he doesn't.

He watches as the pair of them say their vows, when they kiss, when they become man and wife.

And he knows things will never be the same.

He isn't the number 1 man in her life anymore…

At the reception she takes his hand and leads him out onto the dance floor for their obligatory father/daughter dance.

Leo twirls her around the dance floor while Jim happily snaps photos from the sidelines.

Everyone watching can see the deep love between them, the closeness.

And when the dance ends, Leo gives her a kiss on the cheek, a soft "I love you," and leads her over to her husband.

He and Pavel lock eyes and an understanding passes between them.

Satisfied, Leo lets Joanna go.

**_Maybe raise a family_**

His daughter is lying in a big hospital bed, dark hair loose around her face. She is cradling a small bundle in her arms and her eyes are soft with tenderness.

Leo, with a soft smile, knocks gently on the door. She looks up and a broad grin flashes across her face.

"Daddy!"

"Hello Princess," he said, coming into the room and perching beside the bed, "How are you doing?"

"Great," she says, rocking the bundle, "You wanna see?"

"Of course!" Leo says with a laugh. "It's not everyday a man gets to meet his first grandchild."

Jo smiles and hands over the bundle which he gravely accepts. He looks down into a tiny pink face with soft feathery dark hair.

"Her name is Lara," Joanna murmurs, "Lara Elizabeth Chekov."

"She's perfect." Whispers Leo, looking up into his daughters eyes, smiling, "And you know how much I love little girls."

Joanna smiles, tears in her eyes.

"She has our eyes." As if on cue, Lara's eyes opened and blinked up at her grandfather.

"She does!" Leo grins, looking down at her and then back up at his daughter.

He leans over and kisses her cheek.

"Congratulations Princess."

"Thank you Daddy."

**_When I'm gone I hope you see how happy  
she made me_**

A young woman in her late thirties sits before a grave in the late autumn light, red gold leaves falling around her. Her dark hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail, flowing in a rich dark fall down her back.

Her eyes, those piercing hazel green eyes, so like her fathers are fixed on the headstone. Her fingers trace the photograph hidden by the glass plate inside the stone.

"Hey Daddy." She whispers softly, her voice breaking, "Lara had her first ride on her horse this morning. You should have seen it, she was so amazing.

She sniffs.

"Pavel sends his love, told me to tell you that both he and Hikaru have been made Captain's."

Tearfully she smiles.

"I'm pregnant again, a few months along. The doctors told me it's a boy but I haven't told Pavel that yet. I'm going to call him Leonard James daddy. Tell Jim I love him." The hazel green eyes move to the second gravestone beside the other. She had known that when Jim died her father wouldn't stay for long. Two so in love as Jim and her father couldn't live without the other.

Leaning forward she kisses the glass covered photo of Jim and then the one of her father.

"I miss you daddy. And I love you. Always..."

**_For I'll be there  
In my daughter's eyes_**

**  
**_"Love you Princess."_

"I love you too Daddy."


End file.
